Plant Leaves Falling Apart! With Pics

[moosemoosemoo]

Hi all,

I've got a problem I can't find an answer to! Please go easy, I'm new to all of this!

I've done a hell of a lot of research but can't quite find what issue might be.
So, here's my problem. It seems that without fail, the older leaves of my hygrophilia polysperma and hygrophilia diffomis are falling apart, not falling off altogether just in bits. To a lesser extent the older leaves of my Red Ludwigia are doing the same but I tend to lose the whole leaf after it's gone a bit soggy and brown.
As you'll see from the pictures the hygrophilias have holes in the leaves which eventually causes parts of the leaves to fall of. Although the plants are growing new leaves the older leaves are falling apart almost as fast!! By that I mean, if there is new growth, by the time the new leaves are fully formed the leaves beneath it are starting to show symptoms.
I've tried my best to give you some pictures...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/52065491@N08/


The closest symptom I can find is a potassium deficiency and so I've been dosing potassium for a month or so now, as well as the usual Seachem Flourish and root tabs. I've not got Co2 going and really don't want to.
I've also heard it could be an No3 deficiency but apparently it doesn't look like what I have. Although this article looks rather similar:
http://180liter.blogspot.com/2006/05...eficiency.html

I haven't any test results for you yet but was hoping you guys might know what it looks like before I try everything.
I've got a Vision 180 litres which reflectors on the t5 bulbs which gives me per 1.47 watts per US gal (or 1.77 UK gal).

I've just changed the substrate - a week ago - from crushed coral to JBL Manado which seems to be only Europe wide. It was recommended to me by the lfs as a substitute to Seachem gravel and from what I've read it seems pretty good. I can't tell you much more nor can their website, this is the best I can do:
http://www.warehouse-aquatics.co.uk/...te-p-4922.html
I wasn't adding any root tabs before I changed the substrate just adding the liquid fert. I was having this problem with the crushed coral so although it hasn't had time to fix it yet, new holes still seem to be appearing.


The root tabs I'm using are here:
http://www.aquaristikshop.com/e_Prod...he-7-Balls.htm
http://www.aquaristikshop.com/e_Prod...s-30-tabl..htm

The ingredients in the seachem flourish are (from their website):

Total Nitrogen 0.07%
Available Phosphate ( P2O5) 0.01%
Soluble Potash 0.37%
Calcium (Ca) 0.14%
Magnesium (Mg) 0.11%
Sulfur (S) 0.2773%
Boron (B) 0.009%
Chlorine (Cl) 1.15%
Cobalt (Co) 0.0004%
Copper (Cu) 0.0001%
Iron (Fe) 0.32%
Manganese (Mn) 0.0118%
Molybdenum (Mo) 0.0009%
Sodium (Na) 0.13%
Zinc (Zn) 0.0007%

The pottasium I'm adding is Seachem Flourish Pottasium:
http://www.seachem.com/Products/prod...Potassium.html


It's also well worth pointing out that I've had bba (or still do as the case maybe) and have gone for the bleaching method which seemed to work but you may tell me otherwise!
The algae may be the key problem but thought that plants help eliminate it...?!


As for the fish, please see my signature/avatar and/or I'll attempt to attach it below

http://www.flickr.com/photos/52065491@N08/4789841792/


I've also got some Malaysian Trumpet Snails to help with the cleanup but nobody seems to be gobbling anything up at any kind of speed.


Finally my water is hard and I do weekly changes of around 20%


Hope that's everything, let me know if it's not!


Thanks a lot,

Moose

 

[baron von bubba]

i would imagine that most ppl on here will tell you the lighting is too high to be running without the aid of co2.
what is the lighting cycle on for?

possibly remove the reflectors and add some floating plants to cut down the amount of light getting into the tank.

water changes in a non co2 tank can increase BBA in a non CO2 tank. tap water will have a certain amount of co2 in it , this causes fluctuations in levels and can induce BBA. letting the water sit over night before doing the W/C will give this time to gas off.
easy carbo is commonly used for getting rid of BBA. dosing directly to the affected area.
this could be used permanently in your tank, it would probably help you no end altho would be a bit more costly in a larger tank.

plants will help keep a tank algae free, but they must be healthy to help do this, this means supplying the plants with the levels of nutrients and co2 to match the lighting that is being used.

 

[ceg4048]

... I tend to lose the whole leaf after it's gone a bit soggy and brown.
As you'll see from the pictures the hygrophilias have holes in the leaves which eventually causes parts of the leaves to fall of. Although the plants are growing new leaves the older leaves are falling apart almost as fast!!

As The Baron mentions, this is strictly a CO2 failure.

The closest symptom I can find is a potassium deficiency and so I've been dosing potassium for a month or so now, as well as the usual Seachem Flourish and root tabs. I've not got Co2 going and really don't want to.

Well, this is why you'll fail to make any headway. CO2 grows plants. Nothing else really matters until this issue is resolved. No amount of Potassium or NO3 will fix this....Ever.

If you don't want to use CO2 then you'll have to compensate by restricting you lighting intensity. Light and CO2 are tightly related.

If you don't want to deal with the complexity of a gas injection system then you can try the liquid carbon products such as Excel or EasyCarbo, but these will become expensive.

Cheers,

 

[moosemoosemoo]

Ok, thanks very much for the help guys.

I've done a nitrate test and let's just say the problem is not a lack of nitrates!

Alright so I've taken off the reflectors and have been reading up on CO2. It seems that the carbon products seem that could get expensive - unless I'm wrong... - anyone got any links to very very (very) easy, low maintenance DIY Co2?

Thanks again

 

[ceg4048]

...I've done a nitrate test and let's just say the problem is not a lack of nitrates!

Well, that's not true either. The Nitrate test kit tells you nothing, and if you are not dosing nitrates you could easily have a low nitrate issue, although if your fish stocking is high then this is less of an issue. It'v very difficult to access your images because your URL's are not correct so I can only see this image:

From what I can ascertain, at the very bottom of the image, just to the left of the white blob in the lower right corner, you have what appears to be the early stages of BGA covering a few grains of the gravel. This is an unmistakeable indication of low nitrates, which, as per standard operating procedure for this hobby it seems, means that your nitrate test kit has lied to you by telling you that you have high nitrates, when in fact you have low nitrates.

So you have many more problems than you think, and none of your problems are for the reasons that you might think.

The most logical course of action is to maintain your non-CO2 status and simply reduce your lighting energy levels. Do a 3 day blackout, then a very large water change, and then resume with only half the light intensity that you have now. Many Low techers use floating plants to control and restrict the light from penetrating the tank to cause algae. T5 lights are very bright so one has to be careful to avoid excess light.

Seachem Flourish is only a trace element mix. So you can easily add small amount of Nitrogen and Phosphorous as well as the Potassium you are currently adding. You can resolve your BBA by simply not performing any more water changes and by keeping the light low. This is how non-CO2 tanks should be run.

If you decide that you don't like that idea then you would be better off in the short term adding liquid carbon products until you have done enough research to become competent at CO2 injection. Yeast based systems will probably only add to your BBA if you are unskilled.

You need to consider carefully whether you really wish to tread the CO2 path, which requires a lot more attention to detail, and a lot more maintenance. There is no such thing as very very easy low maintenance DIY CO2. You have to prepare the mixtures, you have to swap bottles when they run out of steam, you have to worry about whether they will explode, or dump yeast into the tank, and on and on. if your tank were 20L or so then the small cheap commercial systems would be a good idea but these are impractical for larger tanks.

I think you really need to take a step back, take a deep breath and evaluate what your goals are and perhaps do a bit more reading here to get a feel for which direction you want to take. Visit the Low Tech forum section and look at the Tutorial section to see the kinds of things that you have to be aware of.

Cheers,